


Last Year's Wishes Are This Year's Apologies

by MogmaMittens



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Dissociation, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mood Swings, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, kind of?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-08-09 04:55:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7787542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MogmaMittens/pseuds/MogmaMittens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Someone did this to you?” Leo says, voice hard. Niles seems to startle at this, then shrugs,</p>
<p>“Not the worst thing to happen to anyone, milord.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It’s soft, the way Leo’s thumb traces the hollows below Niles’ eyes; he looks upon him with such gentle adoration that it sears into his skin, makes him feel lighter than air and starts a fire that he thought had gone out. His hands are shaking a bit when they go around the back of Niles’ head, a few strands of his hair catching on his fingers.

 

“You don’t have to let me do this, you know.” Leo’s voice is quiet, almost as if he’s worried he’ll break something if he speaks too loudly. He probably would, truth be told.

 

“It is no trouble for me, milord,” he says, but the wince that only makes it to his eye makes Leo think otherwise. What if he was taking advantage of Niles? He certainly wouldn’t want to do that, and after all Niles had gone through? Leo didn’t want to be another person that hurt him.

 

“Is it not?” He asks, and stills his hands on the back of Niles’ head, his knees digging into the bed they were both sitting on. They were in Leo’s bedroom for the occasion, somewhere private in the dark of night where no one could peek in on them, with the curtains closed and the oil lamps turned all the way up. 

 

“If I seem a bit apprehensive,” Niles brings a hand up and wraps it loosely around Leo’s wrist, “it is only because I’ve had it ripped from me so many times before,” he guides Leo’s hand to the tie on his eyepatch, “but it’s not being ripped from me now. I am  _ asking  _ this of you.”

 

Leo gives him a solemn look and denies himself the urge to kiss him, instead going to work untying the knot at the back of Niles’ head. The hesitance was still there, Leo knew, but he also knew that Niles was serious when he asked Leo to take his eyepatch off -- to let Leo see all of him. His fingers are trembling too hard to untie the knot successfully, and Niles gives him a smile. It’s not his usual one -- sly or smug, and usually after causing Leo some type of mess to clean up -- rather, it’s intimate, and fills Leo with something like the feeling of fresh linens on a cool spring day. 

 

He reaches up and helps Leo with the knot, and before Leo knows it, the eyepatch is lying on Niles’ lap, discarded.

 

He’s nearly afraid to look, but when he does, he’s not as much disturbed by what he sees, rather, he’s  _ angry. _ It’s mainly scar tissue, and a lot of it, almost like he’d been stabbed, or maybe something _ worse.  _ Around the scar tissue, his eye was half-open and just… empty. 

 

“Someone did this to you?” Leo says, voice hard. Niles seems to startle at this, then shrugs,

 

“Not the worst thing to happen to anyone, milord.”

 

“Yet you were still reluctant to show me until now,” Leo countered, though he let himself soften after a moment. After all, he wasn’t in the business of stirring up arguments, not right now. “You may want to stop me, but I still wish to flay the meat from their bones.” 

 

“If you can find them, milord, I will not stop you.”

 

He tucks his anger away for later, deciding that was the better option rather than making this about  _ him,  _ and pulls Niles forward until their foreheads are pressed to one another’s. “I  _ am  _ happy that you want to expose yourself to me, like this.”

 

“Why, Lord Leo, I’ve already exposed myself in every other fashion; you had me thinking, what else was left?” He leans forward and kisses Leo, though it feels… forced, uncomfortable.

 

“Why are you hesitating?” Leo asks, and tries to ignore the wince when his thumb wanders a bit too close to Niles’ eye socket.

 

“Forgive me,” Niles picks up the eyepatch, nearly forgotten, from his lap, “I thought you wouldn’t…” he takes a breath, “I believed it would be alright.” 

 

“And it’s not?” Leo watches as Niles mechanically replaces his eyepatch, looking far more exhausted than he did a moment ago. “Don’t worry yourself over it, Niles. It’s alright.”

 

“Is it truly?” he snaps; his eyes widen near immediately and he sits straight up, “I’ve blundered yet again, milord, excuse me.” With one finger tracing the area around the patch, he goes to stand, only to be stopped by Leo’s insistent grip on his wrist.

 

“Yes. It is fine.” Niles looks down at him like a deer in the headlights, his calm demeanor all but gone. “Sit down, Niles. Please,” Leo says and Niles complies, whether out of fear or something else, he doesn’t know, but Leo moves his hand into Niles’ and squeezes it nonetheless. “Tell me what’s wrong?”

 

“There’s nothing wrong, milord -- nothing I should be bothering you with.” He covers the side of his face with one hand, exhaling shakily. Leo looks closer; he’s trembling.

 

“It’s alright to say no,” Leo begins, and at Niles’ refusal to meet his eyes, he continued, “even to me.” He crawls over the bedspread so he can kiss Niles’ uncovered cheek, never once letting go of his hand.

 

“I find it… difficult, sometimes.” He drags his hand down his face, his hand tightening up at his chin and digging into the skin.

 

Leo hushes him and pulls the hand from his face, shifting and sitting on his knees so he can move Niles over onto his shoulder, “I know, love.” Leo pressed a kiss to the crown of his head, one hand on the side of his neck and the other hand returning to his. “It’s difficult for us all.”

 

Niles looks so small in that moment, his usually broad shoulders small and hunched into Leo’s frame; one of his hands is held in Leo’s while the other makes a tight fist.

 

“Do you want to leave?” Leo drags his fingers through Niles’ hair, some of it catching on his fingers. 

 

“I-”

 

“Not because  _ I  _ want you to leave,” he clarifies, “but because I want to know if you need your space.”

 

“No, I don’t,” Niles squeezes Leo’s hand, “There are times I wish for loneliness, though I’d never wish you away.”

 

Leo brings their hands to his lips, pressing them to his knuckles with the same levity as a feather. “You needn’t worry about that, then.” His eyes flicked over to the pillows at the head of the bed, then back to Niles. “Would you like to lay down?”

 

“If you wouldn’t mind.” 

 

They rearrange themselves until they’re lying comfortably at the head of the bed, Niles’ head on Leo’s chest and both of his arms around his waist. Leo’s hand rests on Niles’ neck, his thumb stroking up and down the nape. Leo’s other hand was on his stomach, fingering at the border of his robe. “How are you feeling?” He questions, burying his face in Niles’ hair.

 

“Tired.” His voice is scratchy, as if he’d been crying recently, and when he looks up at Leo, his eyes are bloodshot and drooping. 

 

“Would you like to go to -” Niles snatches up Leo’s arm before he can reach the lantern on the bedside table, the panic back in his eyes.

 

“With the light on.”

 

Leo looks at him seriously for a moment, then nods, returning his hand to his stomach. He wasn’t very tired -- he usually went to bed far later than this -- but he knew Niles needed the sleep. He could force himself, if necessary.

 

Not long after laying back and closing his eyes, he feels Niles stirring on his chest. Without opening his eyes, he slides his hand up and into Niles’ hair. “Is there anything else I can do?”

 

“No, I--” he pauses, contemplating something, then, “could you kiss me?”

 

“You needn’t  _ ask  _ me.” Leo cracks an eye open, where Niles is staring up at him with wide eyes. “Well?”

 

Niles’ arm moves from atop Leo’s body to cup the side of his face, as if to verify he was real, before he kisses him. It’s soft, and chaste, and full of none of the hesitation that it’d held earlier. 

 

As quick as he was there, he was gone, leaving Leo to wonder if Niles had really kissed him at all.

 

“May I ask why?” Leo says.

 

“You’re… grounding for me.” He presses his face into Leo’s chest, taking a deep, slow breath. “You’re real.”

 

Leo knows that was about as close to “I love you” as he was going to get, at least for tonight, but he mumbles it anyways, softly and into Niles’ hair. Niles throws one of his legs over both of Leo’s, trying to get as much physical contact as possible. 

 

“Are you comfortable?” Leo lays back again, Niles’ soft breathing warm against his collarbones.

 

“No. But I will be,” Niles presses his lips to Leo’s throat, and Leo’s chest aches for him.

 

He felt the breathing turn to quiet snoring, and Leo ran his hand through Niles’ hair one more time before dropping it to the bed. 

 

He hopes things will be better in the morning.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Someone did this too you?” Leo sounds angry, and Niles didn’t expect this, he didn’t expect Leo to be _mad_ at him; he looks up, very suddenly, afraid of the anger in Leo’s eyes.

Niles had always found panic a familiar friend of his, and although it was well hidden deep inside his chest, it was still  _ there  _ nonetheless. It’d calmed down significantly since he’d come into Leo’s service, and even more since he and Leo had begun a romantic relationship, but the way Leo’s hands came to encircle his head sent his heart racing like nothing else.

 

What if Leo didn’t like what he saw?

 

What if that would be what made Leo send him away forever, never to return? He’d have to use his stash of gold that he’d saved after years of working beneath him, just in case, and once that ran out… he was back on the streets.

 

“You don’t have to let me do this, you know,” Leo says, and it’s a small comfort to the knot inside Niles’ chest. He wonders, briefly, if Leo could hear how hard his heart was beating -- his lord always did seem to pick up the little nuances about him, and this was most likely no exception.

 

“It’s no trouble for me, milord,” he replies, flinching when Leo’s finger tugs on a strand of his hair, reminding him of  _ exactly  _ what was going on. Leo was going to remove his eyepatch.  _ Leo was going to see him for how damaged he truly was.  _

 

“Is it not?” He questions, his hand moving farther away from his eyepatch -- thank the Gods -- and down, closer to his neck. The lamps in the room only light the room up a bit, leaving shadows to accentuate the furrowing of Leo’s brow and the frown on his face. Niles wonders if he looked much the same, or if he just looked plain terrified. He’d always had problems hiding his feelings around Leo, not that he’d particularly want to. 

 

“If I seem a bit apprehensive,” Niles steels himself, if only to ensure his voice didn’t shake, “it is only because I’ve had it ripped from me so many times before,” he grabs Leo’s hands -- thanks the Gods that his aren’t shaking as well, or if they are, Leo hasn’t noticed -- and guides them to the tie of his eyepatch. “But it’s not being ripped from me now. I’m  _ asking  _ this of you.”

 

Above all, he wanted his lord to see all of him. To experience all of him. He wanted to feel Leo’s hands everywhere, even if it hurt him. The anxiety was worth it.

 

Just as Leo’s words do little to comfort him, his words seem to do little to comfort Leo, as his hands only trembled more and more the closer he gets to untying his eyepatch. It’s endearing, the way Leo cared so much for him, and he can’t help but give him a small smile as he goes to help him untie the knot. 

 

His anxiety kicks into overdrive as soon as the eyepatch is sitting on his lap, the fresh air hitting the usually-covered part of his face. He’s scared to look at Leo, scared of what he’ll see -- disgust? Horror? Pity? -- he’s unsure which would hurt more, and prepares himself for all three. 

 

“Someone did this too you?” Leo sounds angry, and Niles didn’t expect this, he didn’t expect Leo to be  _ mad  _ at him; he looks up, very suddenly, afraid of the anger in Leo’s eyes. 

 

“Not the worst thing to happen to anyone, milord,” he says, hoping it’ll calm Leo down.  _ Anything  _ to calm Leo down. Perhaps he’d see that it wasn’t that bad, that his anger wasn’t justified, even if his property was damaged, he-

 

His voice was soft when he said, “yet you were still reluctant to show me until now.” His eyes were softer, the sharp edges of his face smoothed out. Niles felt himself at ease, if only for a moment, that Leo seemed to be less angry. “You may want to stop me, but I still wish to flay the meat from their bones.”

 

The tension seems the ebb from his being then, his fear at Leo’s anger -- not quite out of place, either, from some of the reactions he’d gotten -- all but gone. “If you can find them, milord, I will not stop you.” 

 

Leo takes his face in his hands, pulling him close so their foreheads are touching. The anxiety rears up again; Leo was too close to his eye,  _ too close _ , his thumb is on his cheek, and… 

 

“I  _ am  _ happy that you want to expose yourself to me, like this.” 

 

“Why, Lord Leo, I’ve already exposed myself in every other fashion; you had me thinking, what else was left?” he had to joke, he _had to,_ he had to make himself comfortable in his skin in the only way he knew how. He urges his face forward and kisses Leo, putting as much into it as he could -- he had to make him believe it was a tender moment, something soft -- but Leo pulled away before he could do anything else. 

 

“Why are you hesitating?” He asks, and Niles couldn’t come up with a proper response before Leo’s hand was wandering a bit too close to his eye yet again. 

 

It was too much, too much,  _ too much,  _ those words echoing in his head over and over when he picks up the eyepatch and wraps the strings back around his head. He ties them together without ceremony, a familiar and comforting routine after years of much of the same thing. Still, the words persisted, whispering  _ toomuchtoomuchtoomuchtoomuch  _ into his ears and making his head ache. 

 

“Forgive me,” he says quietly, “I thought you wouldn’t…”  _ a man with a knife, so much blood, too much blood, darkness, then laughter, dear Gods, the  _ pain, “I believed it would be alright.”

 

“And it’s not?” There’s nothing inside of him, then, and everything is a bit too far away. There’s a buzzing in the back of his mind, as if it were trying, but failing, to call him back to reality. “Don’t worry yourself over it, Niles, it’s alright.”

 

Apparently anger was still working, because he feels it very suddenly, bursting in his chest, full and  _ righteous,  _ running from his fingertips and up his spine. “Is it truly?” he spits, and then he realizes what he’s said -- what he’s said to  _ Leo,  _ to  _ Leo, who spared him,  _ who couldn’t  _ Leave,  _ dear  _ Gods,  _ he couldn’t  _ be forgotten.  _ “I’ve blundered yet again, milord, excuse me.” He’s floating yet again, his body outside of his body and inside his body and there’s  _ too much all at once  _ but  _ not enough,  _ so he traces the outside of his eyepatch with his finger and starts to leave. He’d still have a chance if Leo didn’t see him like this; if Leo didn’t see him being so  _ wrong.  _

 

Leo’s hand on his wrist stops him, and he’s too weak to fight back.

 

“Yes. It  _ is  _ fine.”  He’s sure he looks terrified in that moment, though his chest echoes back nothing but a muffled version of the original emotion, and then Leo’s holding his hand. Holding his hand like he  _ accepts  _ him, like he wants Niles to  _ stay.  _ “Sit down, Niles, please.” he implores, and Niles can’t help but do just that. “Tell me what’s wrong?”

 

“There’s nothing wrong, milord -- nothing I should be bothering you with.” His hand finds his face and he realizes he’s trembling like a leaf. 

 

“It’s alright to say no,” he hears, rather than sees, Leo lean over so he can kiss his cheek, “even to me,” his breath is warm against Niles’ cheek, and then his lips are there, and it would make him feel all hot inside if he could feel anything except  _ lukewarm.  _

 

“I find it… difficult, sometimes,” he drags his hand down his face and forces his nails down at the end, maybe they’d ground him, maybe they’d make him  _ feel --  _

 

Leo shushes him and pulls him close, his head suddenly in the bend of his shoulder and neck. He’s dizzy and takes respite in it, closing his eye tight and taking a shaky breath. “I know, love,” Leo kisses the top of his head, and the contact stops making him nervous as much as it takes him out of it; he brings his shoulders close to his body in an attempt to fit as close to Leo as he can. “It’s difficult for us all.” His fist was clenched so tightly he’d be surprised if there wasn’t blood, his nails digging into the flesh. It brought him back to the present, though, so he couldn’t complain -- anything that made him better for Leo. “Do you want to leave?”

 

_ Leo wanted him to leave.  _ He wants him to get out, he didn’t want to deal with Niles’ problems anymore. This was the end of his rope--

 

“I-” He’s just about ready to accept and go wallow in his loneliness when Leo continues,

 

“Not because  _ I  _ want you to leave,” he clarifies, “but because I want to know if you need your space.”

 

Everything within him relaxes at that, and it’s probably glaringly obvious in the way he settles into Leo’s arms. “No, I don’t,” it takes too much energy to squeeze Leo’s hand, “There are times I wish for loneliness, though I’d never wish you away.”

 

Leo is kissing each of his knuckles, and it fills his chest with warmth, though it still feels scarred and burnt around the outsides. “You needn’t worry about that, then.” Leo shifts above him, “would you like to lay down?” 

 

“If you wouldn’t mind.” He was  _ exhausted,  _ and as long as Leo kept the light on --  _ dark nights where it was too cold, so cold his fingers turned blue and his toes threatened to fall victim to gangrene, and he had to --  _ he was fine. He was fine. 

 

He lets Leo manhandle him -- because that’s what it is, mostly -- until he’s laying on his chest, the sound of his heart heavy in his ears. It’s exactly what he needed, and he’s not sure if Leo knew or of it was just blind luck. He wraps his arms snugly around Leo’s waist, sure to not let him go; he wouldn’t for anything. Leo’s hand strokes at his neck, and the other is on his stomach, fiddling with something unimportant. “How are you feeling?” He asks, his nose taking up a place in Niles’ hair.

 

“Tired,” and he knows he sounds it, his throat still choked up and burning. He must look as tired as he sounds, given how shocked Leo looks when he looks up at him, his eyes growing wide as they scan over his face.

 

Leo is reaching for the lantern, and Niles has to act fast to grab his hand. “Would you like to go to-  _ oh. _ ” Niles’ hand is around Leo’s wrist in a flash, and his heart is racing again -- he doesn’t want to go back to how he was a few minutes ago. He doesn’t want to feel that way again, and with the lights out? There’s no doubt that he would.

 

“With the light on.” Leo frowns at him for a moment, then relaxes again, laying back onto his pillows. After a moment, he finds himself shifting uncomfortably, the ache in his chest having not abated and his stomach still in knots.

 

“Is there anything else I can do?” Leo inquires, and Niles is so grateful he could die (if he wasn’t  _ already  _ prepared to die for his lord, that was). 

 

“No, I--”

 

_ Well…  _ What he needed was to be  _ there,  _ he needed to feel safe and there and  _ warm.  _ There  _ was  _ a way to do that.

 

“ -- could you kiss me?”

 

“You needn’t  _ ask  _ me,” he looks down at Niles petulantly, and in Niles’ state he almost thinks Leo means it, before Leo gestures his head for him to come closer. “Well?”

 

Not wanting to waste any opportunity, he kisses Leo, full on the mouth and with all the energy he can muster. It’s not much, not enough that Leo would feel the full brunt of what he was feeling, but it was enough. 

 

“May I ask why?” Leo says, and Niles feels discomfort clawing at his mind at the question. Did Leo truly need to know?

 

“You’re… grounding, for me.” He may as well tell the truth now, or else he never would. “You’re real.” 

 

He wishes he could tell Leo he loves him -- and he  _ does, desperately so,  _ but it hurts his head to think it and when Leo whispers it into his hair he thinks that’s enough for him. 

 

He throws his leg over Leo’s thighs, holding him close. He couldn’t stand being far away from Leo right now; he’d get his entire body on him at this point if he could. 

 

“Are you comfortable?” Leo’s head fwomps back against the pillow, and Niles relaxes into his chest. 

 

“No, but I will be.” 

 

He’s getting drowsier, his anxiety all but passed, and he lets himself be lulled into the darkness by Leo’s steady breathing. 

 

He hopes things will be better in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >:^}

**Author's Note:**

> can u tell i have a thing for fall out boy yet
> 
> check out my [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/ni1eo) and [tumblr!!](http://www.alista1r.tumblr.com)


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